Conventional healthcare computing systems can include multiple computer and data nodes to support a large number of users. When one of the users initiates a process, such as rendering a healthcare image, the process is assigned to one of the computer nodes.
In conventional healthcare-related computing systems, determining the assignment of users and applications to computer node is a fairly primitive process that often results in serious imbalances of processing loads between the health-related computing systems. When a process is assigned to a node, the node can become overloaded with processing requirements. More specifically, one computer node in the system can have an overwhelming processing load while another computer node can have no processing load or a very light processing node. The overwhelming processing load experienced by some computer nodes can cause delays in the completion of the process which is at the very least inconvenient for the user. The delay can also increase the cost of attendant users, and in medical emergencies the delay can threaten the life of the patient.
The assignment of a process to a computer node cannot be easily switched dynamically to another computer node because the complexity of the healthcare applications presents difficulty in moving the data between computer nodes in the middle of execution. The difficulty in moving processes between computers during execution places greater importance on assigning each process to a proper computer node from the beginning.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art to balance the load of users and processes across computer nodes in a healthcare environment to prevent overloading of one or several computer nodes down while other computer node(s) have a substantially lighter processing load.